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BELATED G.O.P. CONCERN ABOUT WOMEN

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August 16, 1982, Page 00014 The New York Times Archives

To the Editor:

As the fall election season approaches, Republicans are ''increasingly concerned'' that women will not vote for them (news story Aug. 5). What a pity.

They should have thought more thoroughly - and earlier -about the problems inherent in obstructing the rights of a majority of this country's population.

Yet even now the G.O.P. is hedging. In its inimitable way, the party on record against the equal rights amendment is hoping to charm American women simply by putting a few more female faces in campaign commercials and dragging lone Senator Nancy Kassebaum from state to state.

But cosmetic efforts won't work anymore. Governor James Thompson, despite his ''in-home nursing'' ads, stands out as a major roadblock in the Illinois defeat of the E.R.A. And Republicans, as represented by Ronald Reagan and his party's voting record in Congress, are primarily responsible for budgets and policies that are repressive to women, as well as many other segments of the American public.

Unlike those other segments, however, women are not a minority. We are a majority, politically more capable than ever before, and registering to vote in record numbers.

Republicans are interested in luring the ''woman's vote.'' As far as I'm concerned, they - and any candidate who supports anti-women policies -have already lost it. FELICIA E. HALPERT, Brooklyn, Aug. 7, 1982

A version of this letter appears in print on August 16, 1982, on Page A00014 of the National edition with the headline: BELATED G.O.P. CONCERN ABOUT WOMEN. Today's Paper|Subscribe